Community Based Solidarity Economy and Eco-Social Transformation

Susanne Elsen

Abstract

Even if some European and national labor market or social policy
programs focused on fostering local economy, the social imperative
of social and solidarity economy did not enter the political or
academic mainstream. In light of the consequences of neo-liberal
globalization, socio-political considerations need to pay much more
attention than before to the local living space as a place of
active participation and integration, of collective
self-organization and sustainable development. Shaping sustainable
development raises questions about the logic behind socially
integrated economic activity geared to maintaining the capacity for
social, cultural, ecological and economic evolution. The ecological
imperative of community economy seems to have a stronger effect to
eco-social transformation. The strong re-discovery of
community-based action research - after three decades of
marginalization - is on one side resulting from the challenges of
eco-social transformation, and on the other side it is another
indicator for the growing weight of civil society as steering power
in society, in this case in the scientific realm. It is obvious
that eco-social transformation has to be based in processes of
cooperative learning and participatory social change.